


Vexation of the Spirit

by ellieellieoxenfree



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Body Horror, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Murder, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Just Bad Shit All Around Honestly, Manipulation, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:49:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23438734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellieellieoxenfree/pseuds/ellieellieoxenfree
Summary: The Timeless Child has had many lives and has been many people.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	Vexation of the Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in an evening and posted without proofing. Mea culpa if it's unreadable.

I. 

‘You’ll be very good, won’t you?’ 

The Child nods. She is always good, especially on important days like this. She and Mother will go to the lab, and Mother will fuss over her as though she is the most important person in the world. She doesn’t like the lab, really, because sometimes she is sore afterwards and sometimes she is so tired Mother has to carry her to bed, but she likes when Mother smiles at her and tells her she is being brave. The Child does not always feel brave, but if Mother says it, it must be true.

In the lab there is a little step up to the chair where the Child sits, because she is too short to reach. ‘Hup, hup,’ Mother always says, making a game of it, and she rearranges the Child’s robes so they fan out on the chair. The Child giggles, no matter how many times she hears it.

‘Something a little different today,’ Mother says, pushing the Child’s sleeve up. ‘You’ll have to be extra brave.’

The Child doesn’t like the needle Mother is holding. Needles always hurt, and this one hurts more than usual. She doesn’t feel good, like everything inside her is mixing up. She thinks maybe she should tell Mother, but what would Mother think? Mother wants her to be brave, and she will be brave —

II.

He hates being thought of as the Child, as he is anything but. Almost every week his wrists and ankles are poking out of his clothes because he grows so fast, but even so, he still hears them talk about the Child. _I have a name_ , he wants to shout, but he can’t ever remember what it is, precisely. But it rankles him to be thought of as the Child. His voice is different now — dipping between high and low, but still more man than boy — and his body seems to change every time he looks at it.

‘Let me take your measurements,’ the woman says. The not-Child complies grudgingly. He doesn’t like the way she looks at him, appraising him, taking mental notes. He doesn’t even really know why she has an interest in him, or who she is. He knows her name (knowledge that chafes him and that he pushes out of his mind), but not why she watches after him so closely. He feels like a specimen to her, even when he isn’t brought to her lab for her inspection and her tests. The tests are almost easier; he knows what she wants to see and how to be pliable and well-behaved. It’s the time outside of that, where he can sense her eyes on him, that makes his stomach churn. Something unsettles him about her, a thing he can’t place.

The woman hums approvingly when she finishes the measurements. ‘You’re making very good progress,’ she says, although the not-Child doesn’t know what kind of progress she means. ‘We’ll have to update your records.’ 

Tests, thinks the not-Child. That’s what she means by that. He relaxes a little, comforted. He understands the tests. Those are safe. He’ll be fine.

III.

Something has gone wrong with this one; It doesn’t form right, and It screams, unceasingly, through enough doses of the sedative to knock out a man ten times its size. She tries to smother It, wrapping It in layer after layer of fabric, unsure of how its featureless visage even produces sound. The screaming continues unabated for so long she worries It can’t be killed, and she presses on the ugly, malformed shape of It to force whatever air remains out of — whatever It has; she isn’t sure. 

The silence rings in her ears and the air swirls with gold. 

‘Hello,’ Tecteun says, cradling the Boy’s soft smooth cheek. ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help you.’

IV.

‘We know we can depend on you,’ the man in red says. The Woman nods, because the man in red expects her to nod. She thinks that she had maybe once been less willing to agree with all the things the man in red said, but she can’t recall a time. It’s an odd sort of feeling she can’t hold onto or explain, but that pings against the corners of her mind every so often and then wriggles away before she can grasp it too tightly.

‘Lethal force may be requested,’ says the man in red.

The Woman nods.

‘You have no problem with that, I trust,’ says the man in red.

The Woman shakes her head. What a silly question. As though she is a stranger to lethal force. At least, she thinks she isn’t. Is she? There goes a thought, skittering away from her before she can look at it. 

The man in red gives her a smile that seems both proud and pitying. ‘A shame you won’t remember,’ he says.

V. 

_I don’t want this I don’t want this I don’t want this I don’t want this don’t touch me_

VI.

Hours of training, every day, until they are deemed acceptable. Falling into sleep with hardly enough time to still the restlessness before the prod to wake again, expected to snap to attention without hesitation. They are drilled and regimented, shaped into a creature of all necessity and no excess, and they are proud and lean and vicious. There is doing, and there is enjoying, and they enjoy what they are asked to do. They are capable and clever and most of all, willing. It will be a shame to lose them, but their freedom will be too dangerous.

VII.

He examines the web of veins under his skin and presses his hands to his chest to feel the rhythm of his hearts. His body is a strange, wondrous thing that he can’t stop being fascinated with. He wiggles his toes and swings his feet back and forth, delighting in the simple movement. 

‘Quite energetic today,’ says Mother. Her fingers are flying over the dials of one of her humming machines.

‘Let me help,’ the Boy says. He loves Mother’s machines, even though he doesn’t know what they do. He is a good mimic; he can replicate all the beeps and grumbles everything in Mother’s lab makes. Everything in the lab is music and light to the Boy. He thinks he will never get tired of all the things Mother has set up, because everywhere he looks, there is always something new. 

Mother shakes her head. ‘When you’re older,’ she says. ‘Everything here is very fragile.’

‘I’m very careful,’ argues the Boy. He broke one of Mother’s beakers once, when he was small and stupid, but that was a long time ago and he would never do anything to hurt Mother’s beloved equipment now.

’I know. But not today,’ Mother says. She checks a softly-chugging machine, and the Boy squirms restlessly.

‘When will I be older?’ he says to Mother.

Her smile is a little sad, and the Boy doesn’t know why. ‘Soon,’ she says. ‘Soon.’

VIII.

’I haven’t read the report. Were there survivors?’

‘No. She is very good at her job.’

IX. 

‘Tell me your name again,’ says the Girl, and he does. She wrinkles her nose. ‘It’s too long. Nobody needs that many letters.’

He sulks. ‘Well, that’s what it is anyway.’

‘Shouldn’t be,’ says the Girl, with the irrefutable logic of childhood, and she runs before he can push her into the dirt. He chases after her for a bit, but the sun is in his eyes, and he loses sight of her too quickly to follow for long.

X.

Had there been a girl? Maybe there hadn’t been. Memory is faulty. Perhaps he’d dreamed it. Yes, that’s the likeliest scenario. There had never been a girl at all.


End file.
